What Software Do Electrical Estimators Actually Use?

Most electrical estimators use dedicated estimating software instead of spreadsheets because it lets them count a job on screen, price the material, figure the labor, and print a proposal without retyping the same numbers three different times. I'm Steve Griffin, a designer and trainer at Best Bid Electrical Estimating Software, and I want to walk you through what that actually looks like in practice, not the sales version, the real one.

Why Did Contractors Ever Move Off Spreadsheets?

I've watched a lot of electrical contractors go through the same routine for years. Print the plan full-size. Get out the highlighter. Count every symbol by hand. Then sit down and type those totals into a spreadsheet to get a number.

That last step is where the trouble starts. Every time you transfer a count from paper into a spreadsheet, you've opened the door to a typo, a skipped line, or a fixture that got counted once but priced twice. It's not that people are careless; it's that the process itself has too many hand-offs.

That's the exact gap Best Bid was built to close. You count directly into the software, on screen, and that count carries through to pricing without you ever re-entering it. One entry, one number, all the way through the estimate.

What Do Electrical Estimators Actually Do With the Software?

This is the part that rarely gets explained well, so let me walk through it the way it actually happens on a job.

Taking Off the Job

Instead of a highlighter and a stack of printed sheets, you're counting and measuring right on the digital plan, on your screen. As you count, those numbers flow straight into the estimate. There's no separate step where you stop, tally, and then go enter totals somewhere else.

Pricing With Assemblies

Older estimating programs made you dig through page after page of individual products just to find the one assembly you needed, like hunting for a needle in a haystack. Best Bid works differently. You enter your quantities, hit Assembly Details, and your results are right there.

Where it gets useful is Custom Assemblies. If you're constantly building the same group of items, say, a transformer stand, a grounding loop, or material for a swimming pool job, you can save that group once and pull it into any future estimate. You're not rebuilding it from scratch every time a similar job lands on your desk.

Making Changes Without Starting Over

Electrical jobs shift specs all the time, especially during value engineering. Swap ½" EMT for ¾"? One click. Change copper to aluminum, or EMT to MC? Same thing. You're never locked into the first choice you made; you can adjust at any point without tearing the estimate apart and rebuilding it.

Checking Your Work Before It Goes Out

Best Bid keeps review simple on purpose. You get Assembly Summaries, Man-Hours, Material Summaries, and Audit Trails, plus warning lights that flag missing or incorrect data before you send the bid, not after the job's already lost.

The Worksheet screen ties everything together in one view: low quotes, labor for quotes, rough-in material, labor for rough-in, total man-hours, and labor cost, with the ability to add markup phase by phase instead of one blanket number for the whole job.

That's really the heart of it, one entry point, fewer places for a mistake to hide.

What About Panel Schedules?

Panel schedules are their own separate headache, and a lot of contractors end up wrestling with Excel or doing them by hand. Panel Scheduler is Best Bid's answer to that, a simple, standalone program built for exactly one job: putting together a professional panel schedule without opening a full estimating file to do it.

What About Drawings?

Pricing is only half the picture. A lot of estimators also need to mark up or create drawings, especially for as-built documentation. Accura CADD PDF Draw handles that side, creating or modifying PDF drawings, whether you're turning a redline into an as-built or starting a drawing from a blank page.

Does the Software Work for Small Jobs and Large Jobs Alike?

I get this question a lot, usually from a smaller contractor who assumes estimating software is built for big commercial outfits and won't fit their kind of work. It's not true, at least not with Best Bid. Electrical is the only thing we build software for, and both Best Bid Hybrid Pro and Best Bid Next Generation are set up to handle a small residential job the same way they handle a large commercial one, the software doesn't care whether the job is worth a few thousand dollars or several million, the process is the same.

That matters because a lot of estimating programs on the market were written by programmers, not electricians. They work, technically, but the screens don't think the way an electrician thinks, and you end up fighting the software instead of using it. Best Bid was built by people who estimate electrical jobs for a living, which is why the terminology on screen matches what you'd actually say out loud on a job site, not generic construction jargon.

The Best Bid Product Line at a Glance

Does Software Alone Make You a Good Estimator?

Honestly, no. Software organizes and speeds up the work, but it doesn't teach you what to count, how to judge labor difficulty, or what belongs in a scope of work. That judgment still comes from experience.

That's why Best Bid doesn't stop at software. We run the Best Bid Online School for Electrical Estimating, open for enrollment year-round, built for everyone from someone who's never priced a job before up to a seasoned estimator sharpening their process. Companies can enroll their whole team under a Company Plan so project managers and estimators go through it together, learning how to structure an estimate and price it accurately.

And when a company is simply buried and can't get a bid out the door in time, Best Bid also takes on freelance estimating and drafting work directly, pricing or drawing the job for you when your own crew doesn't have the hours.

How Do You Handle Labor Difficulty in the Software?

Most systems box you into fixed labor columns, column 1, 2, or 3; take it or leave it. Best Bid does it by percentage instead, on a Labor Adjustment tab on every Assembly Summary sheet. You can nudge labor up or down a little, or a lot, and you can do it assembly by assembly rather than dragging one setting across the entire job.

How Do You Keep Material Prices Current?

Stale pricing is a fast way to lose money on a bid, and updating prices by hand across a big database gets old quickly. Best Bid lets you manage prices in-house with an accessible database you can edit on the fly, or connect to NetPricer or real-time pricing services. We've also partnered with Esmarts' NetPak, which opens up IDEA's Industry Data Warehouse, manufacturer product data, third-column market pricing, and NetPak's searchable eCatalogs and real-time distributor pricing on your desktop, laptop, or phone.

What Does the Finished Proposal Actually Look Like?

Once the numbers are done, they need to turn into something a customer can read and sign. Best Bid offers several proposal formats, each one editable, plus a Master Proposal template that auto-fills everything tied to the estimate. You choose what the customer sees, exceptions, assumptions, terms, scope, and your logo, so the finished document looks deliberate, not slapped together at the last minute.

There's also a dedicated spot for indirect costs that are easy to lose track of: plans, remote office, hotel, per diem, fuel, lifts, rentals, temp power, permits, supervision, meetings, and lost time.

Where Best Bid Actually Came From

Here's something a lot of people don't know: Best Bid isn't the company's original name. The business started as 1st Choice Electrical Estimating Software, or 1CEES, back around 1989, with a product called the First Choice Budget Estimator, a simple tool for people without much estimating background to put together an affordable electrical budget.

Once that product ran its course, we saw a real need for something more: entry-level estimating software that could also teach the person using it. That led to the 1CEES System for Commercial Electrical Estimating and the 1CEES Residential Electrical Estimator, which was actually the first estimating software built specifically for residential electricians. Both helped a lot of contractors move away from guesswork toward a real process.

As the client base grew, so did the need for something more advanced, and that's how the Best Bid product line came about, software built around one idea: make it simple, make it electrical-specific, and make it something a contractor could actually learn without a computer science degree. We've since stopped selling the original 1CEES products entirely and put everything into Best Bid, which is why most people know us by that name now, even though the company on paper is still 1st Choice Electrical Estimating Software.

Key Takeaways

• Dedicated estimating software cuts out the double-entry step where most estimating mistakes actually happen.

• Custom Assemblies let you save repeat item groups instead of rebuilding them job after job.

• Labor difficulty in Best Bid is adjusted by percentage, assembly by assembly, not locked to a fixed column.

• Software and training work together; that's why Best Bid pairs its products with an actual online school.

• Best Bid's roots trace back to 1st Choice Electrical Estimating Software (1CEES), founded around 1989.

A Few Common Questions

1. What do most electrical estimators use instead of a spreadsheet?
   Dedicated electrical estimating software, mainly because it links counting, pricing, and labor together in one place instead of forcing you to count by hand and retype totals somewhere else.
   

2. Is Best Bid the same company as 1CEES?
   Yes. Best Bid's official name is 1st Choice Electrical Estimating Software (1CEES), founded around 1989. We stopped selling the original 1CEES products years ago and now sell only the Best Bid line, which is why the Best Bid name is what most people know us by.
   

3. What's the real difference between Best Bid Next Generation and Hybrid Pro?
   Next Generation is built for estimators who want more depth and control over their options. Hybrid Pro has been our flagship for years and is built around getting an estimate done with as few keystrokes as possible.
   

4. Do you still need training if you have the software?
   Yes. The software handles speed and organization, but knowing what to count and how to price it comes from experience, which is exactly what the Best Bid Online School for Electrical Estimating is there to teach.
   

5. Can Best Bid estimate a job for me if I'm out of time?
   Yes. We offer freelance electrical estimating and drafting directly, pricing or drawing the job for you when your own team doesn't have the hours to get it done.

About the Author

I'm Steve Griffin, a designer and trainer at Best Bid Electrical Estimating Software. I work directly on our estimating products and on the Best Bid Online School for Electrical Estimating. You can find me on LinkedIn.

To see the full product line, visit bestbidestimating.com, check out our About Us page, browse the Blog, read the FAQ, look into options for large contractors, book a free electrical estimating consultation, or reach us through Contact Us.